PUBLICATIONS

Four ppm measurement of the antihydrogen ground-state hyperfine splitting The hydrogen atom is a touchstone for the foundations, evolution, and frontiers of quantum theory. Key spectral lines of this atom have been determined to remarkable precision. Our research focuses on the study of antihydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. We test fundamental symmetries of nature…

Be+ assisted, simultaneous confinement of more than 15000 antihydrogen atoms Antihydrogen, the bound state of a positron and an antiproton, is the only pure anti-atomic system ever studied. It is produced exclusively in the laboratory, as it has never been observed in nature. This unique system is of great interest for searching for tentative differences…

Evaluation of a caesium fountain frequency standard for antihydrogen spectroscopy The performance of a caesium fountain frequency reference for use in precision measurements of trapped antihydrogen in the ALPHA experiment at CERN is evaluated. A description of the fountain is provided together with a characterisation of systematic effects. The impact of the magnetic environment in…

The ALPHA-2 apparatus – facilitating experimentation with trapped antihydrogen This paper describes the ALPHA-2 apparatus, used at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator facility for the study of trapped antihydrogen atoms. Details of both the construction and performance are included. Prominence is given to both the new and the improved features, with respect to the original ALPHA…

Precision spectroscopy of the hyperfine components of the 1S–2S transition in antihydrogen The antimatter equivalent of atomic hydrogen—antihydrogen—is an outstanding testbed for precision studies of matter–antimatter symmetry. Here we report on the simultaneous observation of both accessible hyperfine components of the 1S–2S transition in trapped antihydrogen. We determine the 2S hyperfine splitting in antihydrogen and—by…

Shot-noise-induced lower temperature limit of the nonneutral plasma parallel temperature diagnostic We develop a new algorithm to estimate the temperature of a nonneutral plasma in a Penning-Malmberg trap. The algorithm analyzes data obtained by slowly lowering a voltage that confines one end of the plasma and collecting escaping charges, and is a maximum likelihood estimator…

Adiabatic expansion cooling of antihydrogen Magnetically trapped antihydrogen atoms can be cooled by expanding the volume of the trap in which they are confined. We report a proof-of-principle experiment in which antiatoms are deliberately released from expanded and static traps. Antiatoms escape at an average trap depth of 0 . 0 8 ± 0 .…

Measurements of Penning-Malmberg trap patch potentials and associated performance degradation Antiprotons created by laser ionization of antihydrogen are observed to rapidly escape the ALPHA trap. Further, positron plasmas heat more quickly after the trap is illuminated by laser light for several hours. These phenomena can be caused by patch potentials—variations in the electrical potential along…

Observation of the effect of gravity on the motion of antimatter Einstein’s general theory of relativity (GR), from 19151, remains the most successful description of gravitation. From the 1919 solar eclipse2 to the observation of gravitational waves3, the theory has passed many crucial experimental tests. However, the evolving concepts of dark matter and dark energy…

Design and performance of a novel low energy multispecies beamline for an antihydrogen experiment The ALPHA Collaboration, based at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator, has recently implemented a novel beamline for low energy (<100 eV) positron and antiproton transport between cylindrical Penning traps that have strong axial magnetic fields. Here, we describe how a combination of…

Efficient calculations of magnetic fields of solenoids for simulations This paper examines different models for calculating the magnetic field of solenoids. Accuracy and computation time are compared for a range of different simplified models: a current loop and a thin shell solenoid, and solenoids with finite length and thickness. There is no definitive answer to…

Sympathetic cooling of positrons to cryogenic temperatures for antihydrogen production The positron, the antiparticle of the electron, predicted by Dirac in 1931 and discovered by Anderson in 1933, plays a key role in many scientific and everyday endeavours. Notably, the positron is a constituent of antihydrogen, the only long-lived neutral antimatter bound state that can…

On the formation of antihydrogen beams using travelling optical lattices The production of beams of antihydrogen atoms using the dipole force provided by a travelling optical lattice to accelerate a sample of the anti-atoms held in a magnetic gradient atom trap is investigated. By considering current and near-future antihydrogen trapping capabilities we find that useful…

Laser cooling of antihydrogen atoms The photon—the quantum excitation of the electromagnetic field—is massless but carries momentum. A photon can therefore exert a force on an object upon collision. Slowing the translational motion of atoms and ions by application of such a force, known as laser cooling, was first demonstrated 40 years ago. It revolutionized…

Investigation of the fine structure of antihydrogen At the historic Shelter Island Conference on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in 1947, Willis Lamb reported an unexpected feature in the fine structure of atomic hydrogen: a separation of the 2S1/2 and 2P1/2 states. The observation of this separation, now known as the Lamb shift, marked an…

Observation of the 1S–2P Lyman-α transition in antihydrogen In 1906, Theodore Lyman discovered his eponymous series of transitions in the extreme-ultraviolet region of the atomic hydrogen spectrum. The patterns in the hydrogen spectrum helped to establish the emerging theory of quantum mechanics, which we now know governs the world at the atomic scale. Since then,…

Characterization of the 1S–2S transition in antihydrogen In 1928, Dirac published an equation that combined quantum mechanics and special relativity. Negative-energy solutions to this equation, rather than being unphysical as initially thought, represented a class of hitherto unobserved and unimagined particles—antimatter. The existence of particles of antimatter was confirmed with the discovery of the positron…

Axial to transverse energy mixing dynamics in octupole-based magnetostatic antihydrogen traps The nature of the trajectories of antihydrogen atoms confined in an octupole minimum-B trap is of great importance for upcoming spectroscopy, cooling, and gravity experiments. Of particular interest is the mixing time between the axial and transverse energies for the antiatoms. Here, using computer…

Enhanced Control and Reproducibility of Non-Neutral Plasmas The simultaneous control of the density and particle number of non-neutral plasmas confined in Penning-Malmberg traps is demonstrated. Control is achieved by setting the plasma’s density by applying a rotating electric field while simultaneously fixing its axial potential via evaporative cooling. This novel method is particularly useful for…

Antihydrogen accumulation for fundamental symmetry tests Antihydrogen, a positron bound to an antiproton, is the simplest anti-atom. Its structure and properties are expected to mirror those of the hydrogen atom. Prospects for precision comparisons of the two, as tests of fundamental symmetries, are driving a vibrant programme of research. In this regard, a limiting factor…

Aspects of 1S-2S spectroscopy of trapped antihydrogen atoms Antihydrogen atoms are now routinely trapped in small numbers. One of the purposes of this effort is to make precision comparisons of the 1 S -2 S transition in hydrogen and antihydrogen as a precision test of the CPT theorem. We investigate, through calculations and simulations, various…

Observation of the hyperfine spectrum of antihydrogen We report the observation of the hyperfine spectrum of antihydrogen. By exposing trapped antihydrogen to microwave radiation and scanning the microwave frequency over two distinct transitions, we are able to extract the ground state hyperfine splitting. From a series of measurements involving a total of 194 detected atoms,…

Observation of the 1S-2S transition in trapped antihydrogen We report the observation of the 1S-2S transition in magnetically trapped atoms of antihydrogen in the ALPHA-2 apparatus at CERN. We determine that the frequency of the transition, driven by two photons from a frequency stabilised laser at 243 nm, is consistent with that expected for hydrogen…

An improved limit on the charge of antihydrogen from stochastic acceleration Antimatter continues to intrigue physicists because of its apparent absence in the observable Universe. Current theory requires that matter and antimatter appeared in equal quantities after the Big Bang, but the Standard Model of particle physics offers no quantitative explanation for the apparent disappearance…

Physics with antihydrogen Performing measurements of the properties of antihydrogen, the bound state of an antiproton and a positron, and comparing the results with those for ordinary hydrogen, has long been seen as a route to test some of the fundamental principles of physics. There has been much experimental progress in this direction in recent…

An experimental limit on the charge of antihydrogen The properties of antihydrogen are expected to be identical to those of hydrogen, and any differences would constitute a profound challenge to the fundamental theories of physics. The most commonly discussed antiatom-based tests of these theories are searches for antihydrogen-hydrogen spectral differences (tests of CPT (charge-parity-time) invariance)…

In situ electromagnetic field diagnostics with an electron plasma in a Penning–Malmberg trap We demonstrate a novel detection method for the cyclotron resonance frequency of an electron plasma in a Penning–Malmberg trap. With this technique, the electron plasma is used as an in situ diagnostic tool for the measurement of the static magnetic field and…

The ALPHA antihydrogen trapping apparatus The ALPHA collaboration, based at CERN, has recently succeeded in confining cold antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic minimum neutral atom trap and has performed the first study of a resonant transition of the anti-atoms. The ALPHA apparatus will be described herein, with emphasis on the structural aspects, diagnostic methods and…

Nonlinear dynamics of anti-hydrogen in magnetostatic traps: implications for gravitational measurements The influence of gravity on anti-hydrogen dynamics in magnetic traps is studied. The advantages and disadvantages of various techniques for measuring the ratio of the gravitational mass to the inertial mass of anti-hydrogen are discussed. Theoretical considerations and numerical simulations indicate that stochasticity may…

Autoresonant-spectrometric determination of the residual gas composition in the ALPHA experiment apparatus Knowledge of the residual gas composition in the ALPHA experiment apparatus is important in our studies of antihydrogen and nonneutral plasmas. A technique based on autoresonant ion extraction from an electrostaticpotential well has been developed that enables the study of the vacuum in…

Description and first application of a new technique to measure the gravitational mass of antihydrogen Physicists have long wondered whether the gravitational interactions between matter and antimatter might be different from those between matter and itself. Although there are many indirect indications that no such differences exist and that the weak equivalence principle holds, there…

Experimental and computational study of the injection of antiprotons into a positron plasma for antihydrogen production One of the goals of synthesizing and trapping antihydrogen is to study the validity of charge-parity–time symmetry through precision spectroscopy on the anti-atoms, but the trapping yield achieved in recent experiments must be significantly improved before this can be…

Antihydrogen annihilation reconstruction with the ALPHA silicon detector The ALPHA experiment has succeeded in trapping antihydrogen, a major milestone on the road to spectroscopic comparisons of antihydrogen with hydrogen. An annihilation vertex detector, which determines the time and position of antiproton annihilations, has been central to this achievement. This detector, an array of double-sided silicon…

Resonant quantum transitions in trapped antihydrogen atoms The hydrogen atom is one of the most important and influential model systems in modern physics. Attempts to understand its spectrum are inextricably linked to the early history and development of quantum mechanics. The hydrogen atom’s stature lies in its simplicity and in the accuracy with which its…

Discriminating between antihydrogen and mirror-trapped antiprotons in a minimum-B trap Recently, antihydrogen atoms were trapped at CERN in a magnetic minimum (minimum-B) trap formed by superconducting octupole and mirror magnet coils. The trapped antiatoms were detected by rapidly turning off these magnets, thereby eliminating the magnetic minimum and releasing any antiatoms contained in the trap.…

Confinement of antihydrogen for 1,000 seconds Atoms made of a particle and an antiparticle are unstable, usually surviving less than a microsecond. Antihydrogen, made entirely of antiparticles, is believed to be stable, and it is this longevity that holds the promise of precision studies of matter–antimatter symmetry. We have recently demonstrated trapping of antihydrogen atoms…

Centrifugal Separation and Equilibration Dynamics in an Electron-Antiproton Plasma Charges in cold, multiple-species, non-neutral plasmas separate radially by mass, forming centrifugally separated states. Here, we report the first detailed measurements of such states in an electron-antiproton plasma, and the first observations of the separation dynamics in any centrifugally separated system. While the observed equilibrium states…

Autoresonant Excitation of Antiproton Plasmas We demonstrate controllable excitation of the center-of-mass longitudinal motion of a thermal antiproton plasma using a swept-frequency autoresonant drive. When the plasma is cold, dense, and highly collective in nature, we observe that the entire system behaves as a single-particle nonlinear oscillator, as predicted by a recent theory. In contrast,…

Search For Trapped Antihydrogen We present the results of an experiment to search for trapped antihydrogen atoms with the ALPHA antihydrogen trap at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator. Sensitive diagnostics of the temperatures, sizes, and densities of the trapped antiproton and positron plasmas have been developed, which in turn permitted development of techniques to precisely and…

Trapped Antihydrogen Antimatter was first predicted in 1931, by Dirac. Work with high-energy antiparticles is now commonplace, and anti-electrons are used regularly in the medical technique of positron emission tomography scanning. Antihydrogen, the bound state of an antiproton and a positron, has been produced at low energies at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research)…

Cold antihydrogen: a new frontier in fundamental physics The year 2002 heralded a breakthrough in antimatter research when the first low energy antihydrogen atoms were produced. Antimatter has inspired both science and fiction writers for many years, but detailed studies have until now eluded science. Antimatter is notoriously difficult to study as it does not…

Evaporative Cooling of Antiprotons to Cryogenic Temperatures We report the application of evaporative cooling to clouds of trapped antiprotons, resulting in plasmas with measured temperature as low as 9 K. We have modeled the evaporation process for charged particles using appropriate rate equations. Good agreement between experiment and theory is observed, permitting prediction of cooling…

Antihydrogen formation dynamics in a multipolar neutral anti-atom trap Antihydrogen production in a neutral atom trap formed by an octupole-based magnetic field minimum is demonstrated using field-ionization of weakly bound anti-atoms. Using our unique annihilation imaging detector, we correlate antihydrogen detection by imaging and by field-ionization for the first time. We further establish how field-ionization…

Antiproton, positron, and electron imaging with a microchannel plate/phosphor detector A microchannel plate (MCP)/phosphor screen assembly has been used to destructively measure the radial profile of cold, confined antiprotons, electrons, and positrons in the ALPHA experiment, with the goal of using these trapped particles for antihydrogen creation and confinement. The response of the MCP to…

Magnetic multipole induced zero-rotation frequency bounce-resonant loss in a Penning-Malmberg trap used for antihydrogen trapping In many antihydrogen trapping schemes, antiprotons held in a short-well Penning–Malmberg trap are released into a longer well. This process necessarily causes the bounce-averaged rotation frequency \omegar of the antiprotons around the trap axis to pass through zero. In the…

Compression of Antiproton Clouds for Antihydrogen Trapping Control of the radial profile of trapped antiproton clouds is critical to trapping antihydrogen. We report the first detailed measurements of the radial manipulation of antiproton clouds, including areal density compressions by factors as large as ten, by manipulating spatially overlapped electron plasmas. We show detailed measurements of…

A Novel Antiproton Radial Diagnostic Based on Octupole Indused Ballistic Loss We report results from a novel diagnostic that probes the outer radial profile of trapped antiproton clouds. The diagnostic allows us to determine the profile by monitoring the time history of antiproton losses that occur as an octupole field in the antiproton confinement region…

Critical Loss Radius in a Penning Trap Subject to Multipole Fields When particles in a Penning trap are subject to a magnetic multipole field, those beyond a critical radius will be lost. The critical radius depends on the history by which the field is applied, and can be much smaller if the particles are injected…

Antihydrogen For Precision Tests In Physics The creation of atoms of antihydrogen under controlled conditions has opened up a new era in physics with antimatter. We describe the experimental realisation of low energy antihydrogen, via the mixing of carefully prepared clouds of positrons and antiprotons, and some of the progress that has been made in…

Production of Antihydrogen at Reduced Magnetic Field for Anti-atom Trapping We have demonstrated production of antihydrogen in a 1 T solenoidal magnetic field. This field strength is significantly smaller than that used in the first generation experiments ATHENA (3 T) and ATRAP (5 T). The motivation for using a smaller magnetic field is to facilitate…

Antimatter Plasmas in a Multipole Trap for Antihydrogen We have demonstrated storage of plasmas of the charged constituents of the antihydrogen atom, antiprotons and positrons, in a Penning trap surrounded by a minimum-B magnetic trap designed for holding neutral antiatoms. The neutral trap comprises a superconducting octupole and two superconducting, solenoidal mirror coils. We have…

A Magnetic Trap for Antihydrogen Confinement The goal of the ALPHA collaboration at CERN is to test CPT conservation by comparing the 1S–2S transitions of hydrogen and antihydrogen. To reach the ultimate accuracy of 1 part in 1018 , the (anti)atoms must be trapped. Using current technology, only magnetic minimum traps can confine (anti)hydrogen. In…

Effects of extreme magnetic quadrupole fields on Penning Traps, and the consequences for antihydrogen trapping Measurements on electrons confined in a Penning trap show that extreme quadrupole fields destroy particle confinement. Much of the particle loss comes from the hitherto unrecognized ballistic transport of particles directly into the wall. The measurements scale to the parameter…

Antihydrogen on tap Plentiful quantities of antihydrogen, the bound state system of the antiparticles the positron and the antiproton, have recently been made under very controlled conditions in experiments at the European Laboratory of Particle Physics (CERN) near Geneva. In this article I describe how that was done, and why. Mike Charlton Physics Education Physics…